Tennis matches can’t be any closer or end with much greater heartbreak.

The Ohio State men’s doubles team of Peter Kobelt and Kevin Metka came tantalizingly close to winning the NCAA championship yesterday in Athens, Ga., but lost 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 7-6 to Tennessee’s Mikelis Libietis and Hunter Reese, falling in the final tiebreaker 8-6.

Neither team broke serve the entire match. Ohio State never even got to a break point on Tennessee’s serve.

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Kobelt and Metka, the fourth seed, lost only one service point in losing the first-set tiebreaker 7-4, and that came after a net cord.

In the second set, Ohio State fought off two match points on Kobelt’s serve and fell behind the second-seeded Libietis and Reese early in the second tiebreaker before rallying to win it 7-3.

In the third-set tiebreaker, Ohio State fell behind 3-0 but got back on serve until Metka double-faulted at 6-6. On match point — Tennessee’s fourth but first on its serve — Kobelt’s passing shot hit the tape of the net.

“If you’d asked me last night, ‘If you hold serve every game, do we win?’ I would have said yes,” Buckeyes coach Ty Tucker said.

“That was a professional tennis match on a collegiate campus. Somebody had to lose, and we just came up a half an inch short.”

Libietis and Reese have been a dominant pair for a couple of years and spent much of the year ranked No. 1. Tucker split up Kobelt and Metka as a pair in early March because he believed doing so gave the Buckeyes a better chance of winning two of the three doubles matches needed to earn the doubles point.

Reunited for the NCAAs, Kobelt and Metka didn’t lose a set in reaching the finals and pushed Tennessee to the absolute limit.

“It’s tough to swallow right now, but it’s a good accomplishment for me and Peter after not playing the second half of the season together,” said Metka, a redshirt junior from Worthington Kilbourne. “Having it that close and having it slip from us is tough right now.

“But getting to the finals is incredible. I’m really proud of Peter, and I want to thank the coaches for helping us get better.”

Kobelt, a recent OSU graduate from New Albany, finishes his Ohio State career with the most doubles victories in school history (142) and is second in combined singles and doubles victories (267).

“We’re going to miss Peter Kobelt,” Tucker said. “Every year at this time, we’re trying to replace a heavy hitter, and he’s been unbelievable to the program. He’ll definitely make the Ohio State Athletic Hall of Fame.

“He’s meant a lot to us as a player, a captain and a teammate. It’s sad to see his last match end like that. But when you’re a college tennis player, you want to be out there playing the last match of collegiate season, and Peter and Kevin certainly were.”

Kobelt will begin his pro career immediately. He said he will fly to Israel tonight to play in a tournament.

“It was special,” he said of his Buckeyes career. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“I want to thank my teammates for a helluva year. I wish them the best. I wish I was a freshman again. I want to thank the coaches — Ty and (assistant coaches) Justin (Kronauge) and (David) Schilling — not just for what they did on the court but off the court, as well, helping me become a better man.”